In a world where so many licensed properties are turned into video games to coincide with a movie release date for a quick buck and low expectations, it’s rare to see an IP leveraged for all it’s worth. That was the case with 2010’s Transformers: War for Cybertron. The third person shooter wasn’t tied to any current movie, cartoon, or toy line, which gave developer High Moon Studios the freedom and time to create a high quality game set in the expansive Transformers universe. It stood out, and did for the Transformers what Arkham Asylum did for Batman. High Moon is at it again, and this time the war has become much more urgent. The battle between the Autobots and the Decepticons has taken its toll, and soon Cybertron will fall.
Suda 51 has never produced what one would call a ‘normal’ game. Pairing odd subject manner with hyper-stylized aesthetic in games like Killer 7, No More Heroes and Shadows of the Damned, the fruits of the famed developer’s labor have struggled to find any kind of sizable audience. Perhaps it makes sense then that Suda’s next game, Lollipop Chainsaw, while sporting a strange title and a concept that may still be considered a departure from the norm, is his most mainstream title yet.
Capcom has been quite the news grabber lately, and it has been mostly negative news over the past year and a half or so. Whatever your feelings for the prolific Japanese developer/publisher, it can’t be denied that Capcom has been one of the most aggressive leaders in establishing new IPs this generation. While that has given us everything from very popular properties like Dead Rising to failures like Dark Void and games that can’t quite be defined like Asura’s Wrath, new and untested games seem to come out of the House of Mega Man at least a couple times a year. Enter Dragon’s Dogma, a game that hopes to bridge the gap between Japanese and Western development sensibilities.
Sonic the Hedgehog has had a sketchy period for some time now. Many would say that titles released this generation have been mediocre at best, with only Sonic Colors and Sonic Generations recently being exceptions. If you want to enjoy a good Sonic game, the majority of fans would point you back to the early 90s when Sonic stood toe to toe with Mario with titles like Sonic the Hedgehog 2, Sonic CD and Sonic & Knuckles.
With the upcoming release of The Walking Dead, developer Telltale Games has a lot to prove. Not only do they have to reestablish consumer faith in their products after the lackluster reception of Jurassic Park, but they have to create a game that appeals to both the audiences of the Image comic book and the wildly popular AMC television show. Beyond that, this is the first M rated game from the normally family friendly company. A lot is riding on this game, and it will be up to the fans to decide how well Telltale fares. So far, it looks like they have things well in (zombified) hand.
Double Dragon is one of those games that everyone has played, or at least heard of. From its humble beginning as an arcade brawler, the franchise has gone on to make an appearance in some form in almost every console generation. The original title was ported to nearly every available system at the time, including the Atari 2600 in 1988. (And you thought this console generation was long!) Brothers Jimmy and Billy have been in one on one fighting games, have teamed up with the Battletoads on the SNES, and had the Double Dragon world predominantly featured in a completely over the top fan tribute to the NES called Abobo’s Big Adventure. Needless to say, Majesco and WayForward have some pretty big shoes to fill.
With Borderlands being the critical and commercial success that it was, I didn’t think we’d see much deviation in Borderlands 2. However, after getting a chance to play the game for myself I can safely say that Borderlands 2 looks to add a lot more than new equipment – though they’re sure to add a staggering amount of that as well. Focused on character design and strategy, Borderlands 2 offers a stronger dynamic between weapon and class choices. You can still expect the same hectic, loot-filled gameplay that the series has become known for, but the experience is refined this time around. As Jeramy Cooke Gearbox’s Art Director told me, “This is definitely Borderlands 2.0, not 1.5.”
Skullgirls is an upcoming 2D sprite-based fighter that is the first project for developers Reverge Labs, who are comprised of industry veterans. According to Reverage Labs, Skullgirls was created to “bring back the sheer inventive fun of classic combo-crazy 2D fighters without the abusable gameplay issues that they are also remembered for.”
If you dream of controlling fully customized, walking machines of death around a battlefield, you are probably Japanese. If you actually aren’t Japanese and this concept has some appeal to you, then you are part of the niche of Western gamers that Armored Core V is courting. Even though mech piloting sounds like a lot of fun to almost everyone, most of us in the West just don’t get around to doing it in our spare time. All indications are that we should clear our schedules to try out Armored Core V.
I typically don’t like replaying sections of a game that I haven’t finished and yet I’ve played through the first act of Diablo III somewhere to the tune of ten times. That’s a ringing endorsement of how fun and addicting this game is and I’ve been ready to play the real thing for months now. But Blizzard has other plans in mind, having recently made some sweeping changes to the way stats affect character progression, among other things. With that in mind, I decided to roll a new Barbarian and take a look at these alterations to Blizzard’s long-gesticulating RPG.
Many Tales fans feared that we would never see Tales of Graces on U.S. soil. It has been three years since the Japanese Wii release and two years since the release of the enhanced PS3 port, Tales of Graces f. Though it looked unlikely, Namco Bandai announced last year that we in the U.S. would officially be getting Tales of Graces f and that we would be getting the best possible version of the game. Tales of Graces f may not be on the radar of many gamers, but people interested in the JRPG genre should definitely look out for this.
The video game industry, much like any entertainment provider, has gone through many different trends and phases. Genres spike in popularity and then peter down, sometimes even fading into obscurity and out of the communities conscious. There was a time when flight sims were all the rage, now most retailers would look at you funny if you asked their opinion on which flight stick you should buy. At times an arcade-style flight game like Ace Combat rears its head to remind the masses that the genre still exists, but we all know that the pure sim has been relegated to niche for quite some time. Just don’t tell Konami that.
This generation has been extremely kind to the fighting game enthusiast. Not only have we seen the rebirth of franchises such as Street Fighter, SoulCalibur and King of Fighters, but we have seen things happen that were previously unlikely for the genre. Nobody thought we would see Marvel vs. Capcom 3 after 10 years, yet last year we got not one, but two different versions of the long-awaited sequel.
Inspired by real locations and events such as snowboarding, the long awaited sequel to SSX has returned and it’s more social than ever. The sixth game in the SSX franchise focuses on teams of extreme athletes attempting to conquer the world’s most dangerous mountain ranges with their competition hot on their stalefish. By all accounts, EA Canada has returned SSX to its foundation.
We’ve all heard the story before. Man creates machines, machines become self aware, machines rise up against man, and Keanu Reeves saves the day. This is the basic stuff that sci-fi horror and technological apocalypse stories are made of, but as we draw closer and closer to reaching the singularity, these hypothetical doomsday scenarios creep deeper into the collective consciousness.
In 2006, fans of the Tales series were starving for more. Coming off of the surprising success of Tales of Symphonia for the Nintendo Gamecube were not one, but two titles in the same year. The first, Tales of Legendia went largely ignored for its odd art style and lackluster presentation. The second title was Tales of the Abyss, which seemed like more of the natural progression of what Symphonia had achieved earlier.
The Darkness II has some big shoes to fill. Not only is it a sequel to a beloved first person shooter from the early days of the Xbox 360 and PS3, but it’s being developed by a studio tasked with taking over for Starbreeze Studios. Starbreeze, of course, is the studio behind the highly regarded Xbox game The Chronicles of Riddick, which is currently working on the Syndicate reboot for EA. Yes, The Darkness II has some big shoes to fill, but so far the game looks to do just that.
Drake is capable of many superhuman acts. He can scale nigh impassable rock faces, he can run, gun, jump and punch – he can do all these things without exuding a single drop of sweat and with a clear conscience to boot, despite all the blood he has shed over the years. But all of this pales in comparison to what Sony is asking of him now. Soon we’ll see what Drake is really made of and if he can move the PlayStation Vita off store shelves and into the pockets of gamers.
Resident Evil Revelations is shaping up to be one of the richest titles in the series. It's hard to believe that such a feature packed game could be found on a portable system. If the overall tone of the demo is any indicator, Revelations is on track to be just as important as any of the console entries in the series.
When Twisted Metal: Black was released in 2001 the world was taken by storm by its great single player stories, large-scale online multiplayer, and endlessly fun local multiplayer. Here we are, waiting nearly 11 years to get our hands on the next console version of Twisted Metal. With a February 14th release date, this Valentines Day is shaping up to be a good day for any PS3 owner who is into cars, destruction, morbid stories, and online multiplayer.
As the spiritual successor to Warhawk, LightBox and Santa Monica Studios hope to evolve online warfare through their PS3 exclusive, Starhawk. The public online beta launched earlier this month for all PS Plus members and will be open to all Uncharted 3 owners on January 31. The game will be released with a wide variety of online multiplayer modes as well as an offline single player campaign this May.
It’s been four years since the last SoulCalibur was released and a lot has changed. The fighting genre has seen a revival and the market is a lot more crowded than before. So when the sixth installment was announced in May 2011, fans of the series knew that business as usual would no longer be enough. The new SoulCalibur V would have to make substantial changes in order to differentiate itself from the other big titles in the fighting genre as well as evolve from its previous iterations in the series.
While not many have had the opportunity to play the Virtual Boy, Renegade Kid’s latest work is oddly reminiscent of Nintendo’s misfit system. Back when the Virtual Boy launched, it touted its special 3D capabilities; these boiled down to little more than multiple viewing planes, which gave the illusion of 3D. The most memorable games used these multiple planes to create deeper platforming experiences. Taking a cue from these experiences, Mutant Mudds allows players to jump between the current plane, background, and foreground.
It’s been a bit of a rough road for the Final Fantasy series in the past few years. There was a four year gap between Final Fantasy XII and XIII due to a protracted development cycle, and we’re still waiting to get our hands on its companion game, Final Fantasy Versus XIII.
Starting life as an MMORPG, Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning has morphed into one of the more interesting original IPs to be released next year. The game is being developed by industry newcomer 38 Studios and strategy game developer Big Huge Games. These names may not carry much weight, but they have some serious big name talent working on Reckoning’s game world, most notably being revered fantasy author R.A. Salvatore and comic god Todd McFarlane who have created the game world and artwork respectively. Lesser known, but still a heavy lifter in his own right, is Ken Ralston who was the lead designer on Morrowind and Oblivion.
